Melissa Kretschmer. Excavations

About

Kretschmer, who has shown extensively throughout Europe and the United States is known for her bold yet minimal works which straddle a space between painting and sculpture. In Excavations, Kretschmer presents a series of new works which explore the edges of the painting through bringing them into the center of the work. The paintings’ multi layered surfaces: vellum, gesso, gouache, beeswax and graphite on cut and gouged plywood, result in works that explore depth through minimal planes and palettes and emphasize wood as both a material and a surface.

The process in Kretschmer’s work forms its content. Barbara Rose described Kretschmer’s paintings as “images that emerge out of the process of using materials to create complex surfaces.”¹

She cuts through the layers of her materials with the blade of a table saw, excavating the inside of the painting to reveal its form and the relationship of the edge to its center. The artworks in Excavations illustrate Kretschmer’s intentional mark-making which peels back the layers of her paintings to reveal their language of materials. This series continues a conversation central to abstract painting; that of addressing issues of surface and support, materials and process .